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Qualitative Analysis

Code: 101149 ECTS Credits: 6
2025/2026
Degree Type Year
Sociology OB 3

Contact

Name:
Dafne Muntanyola Saura
Email:
dafne.muntanyola@uab.cat

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

None. 


Objectives and Contextualisation


The subject Qualitative Analysis must be understood in continuity with the previous ones and it has like fundamental objective the understanding and application of methods and techniques of qualitative analysis a various areas of sociological research. However, these are not treated in a way Timely and isolated, but framed in a research process and in a methodological perspective coherent that integrates theorization, data production and analysis / interpretation. The realization of a Research work with abductive logic will be geared towards achieving this goal. Specifically, the students will do an ethnographic observation work that includes all phases abductive of the investigation, from the collection of data to the construction of an ideal type, going through the construction of the observation card and the analysis of both discourse and practice.


Competences

  • Applying the main quantitative and qualitative methods and techniques of social research to a specific topic.
  • Describing social phenomena in a theoretically relevant way, bearing in mind the complexity of the involved factors, its causes and its effects.
  • Designing a social research project by defining a comprehensive theoretical framework with clearly defined concepts, formulating consistent and significant hypothesis, choosing suitable investigation techniques for the adopted concepts, and analysing the empirical results obtained with those techniques.
  • Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
  • Developing self-learning strategies.
  • Enumerating the methodology and investigation techniques that support the main hypothesis about social relationships, the positions and practices of individuals in a social structure and the social changes.
  • Searching for documentary sources starting from concepts.
  • Students must be capable of assessing the quality of their own work.
  • Students must be capable of managing their own time, planning their own study, managing the relationship with their tutor or adviser, as well as setting and meeting deadlines for a work project.
  • Working in teams and networking in different situations.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Analysing a sample of interviews.
  2. Analysing the results of an observation.
  3. Defining concepts of analysis.
  4. Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
  5. Developing self-learning strategies.
  6. Explaining the methodological basis of these quantitative and qualitative methods and techniques.
  7. Formulating a hypothesis with these concepts.
  8. Identifying the main quantitative and qualitative methods and techniques.
  9. Indicating their dimensions, their possible quantitative indicators and the significant qualitative evidence in order to empirically observe them.
  10. Mentioning the main concepts of sociology.
  11. Obtaining conclusions from the information obtained with this tool.
  12. Preparing a script for an interview or a discussion group.
  13. Preparing an analytical tool that is significant to this hypothesis.
  14. Producing an observation plan.
  15. Relating them with the different approaches of sociology.
  16. Searching for documentary sources starting from concepts.
  17. Students must be capable of assessing the quality of their own work.
  18. Students must be capable of managing their own time, planning their own study, managing the relationship with their tutor or adviser, as well as setting and meeting deadlines for a work project.
  19. Using the appropriate software in order to analyse an interview or an observation.
  20. Working in teams and networking in different situations.

Content

 

Topic 1. Introduction. Methodological perspectives in qualitative research and differentiating axes. General aspects of design. The qualitative spiral.

Epistemological principles: reflexivity, pragmatism and intersubjectivity.

Topic 2. General aspects of qualitative analysis methods. Materials subject to qualitative analysis. Inductive, deductive and abductive dynamics. Discourse as a product and discourse as a process. Levels of analysis: concepts, dimensions and indicators.

Topic 3. Tools for field work: data collection and analysis. Field notes Observation card Interview script

Topic 4. The analysis of the data From the thematic analysis of content to the generation of categories. Analytical and interpretative principles of Grounded Theory Procedures and phases. Open, axial and selective. Evaluation criteria and controversies of the WG.

Topic 5. Other methods of analysis Structural analysis Critical analysis of the discourse

Topic 6. The formalization of qualitative analysis (this topic will only be given if the faculty invests the necessary resources to update the software).

The use of computer tools in qualitative analysis. The ELAN and Atlas.ti programs. Textual and conceptual levels of analysis. The creation of the typological grill and ideal types


Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
ATLAS.ti Workshop 4 0.16 2, 1, 17, 5, 13, 20, 19
In class Tasks 10 0.4 2, 1, 17, 3, 5, 4, 12, 13, 14, 6, 7, 8, 11, 15, 20
Theoretical Sessions 9 0.36 3, 13, 6, 7, 8, 11, 15
Type: Supervised      
Compulsory team office hours 2 0.08 17, 3, 4, 13, 7, 18, 11, 20
Type: Autonomous      
Final project (objectives, observation template, interview script). 30 1.2 2, 1, 17, 16, 3, 5, 4, 13, 14, 6, 7, 18, 8, 11, 20, 19
Preparation of the individual project 10 0.4 17, 5, 4, 13, 6, 7, 18, 8, 11, 15


Teaching dynamics combines a practical orientation with the necessary theoretical reflection It accompanies the application of the methods and techniques treated. With regard to teaching in the classroom, the plenary sessions are based on the exhibition of contents, open to the active participation of the students and to the introduction of small practical dynamics. On the other hand, in the practical sessions and there will be three types of activities: guidance general research work; analysis of compulsory bibliography texts and practices a the computer room. The autonomous work of the student will be oriented to the realization of an ethnographic project that It applies the theoretical and empirical contents worked on the subject.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Complete the reading tasks and the breaching game 30 25 1 17, 16, 3, 5, 10, 6, 18, 8, 15
Conclusive thoughts 10 5 0.2 10, 11, 15
Fieldnotes 10 10 0.4 17, 3, 5, 4, 13, 14, 18, 15, 20, 19
Public defense 20 15 0.6 2, 1, 3, 5, 4, 10, 6, 11, 15
Team project (Topic, observation template, interview script). 30 30 1.2 2, 16, 3, 12, 13, 14, 10, 7, 18, 9, 20, 19

Active and constructive participation in class will be encouraged through partial submissions, culminating in a team-based abductive comparative observation project. This will include an oral defense and written conclusions, as well as the individual submission of two critical questions on paper during each reading seminar. All partial and final components of the group project must be submitted: topic, timeline, field notes, observation sheet, interview script, oral presentation, and the final written report with analysis and conclusions. Additionally, the breaching project and field notes must also be submitted.

Each student must complete a minimum of 8 hours of individual observation. These observations must take place in two distinct social settings, following the course calendar. Field notes must follow the model explained in class.

To pass the course, all assignments must be submitted on the scheduled dates with a minimum grade of 4 out of 10. If submissions are incomplete or the final project does not meet the minimum grade, the course will be considered failed. The individual work will not be assessed unless the group project has also been submitted.

A “not presented” (NP) grade will only be accepted if the student informs the instructor of their withdrawal from the course within the first two weeks, or if all but one of the required submissions have been completed with a grade above 4.

Students are reminded that changing groups is not allowed unless previously approved by the faculty during the second week of the course. In case of a group change, the student must have attended class from the first day.

All required evidence must be submitted to qualify for continuous assessment. Submissions without a name or submitted after the deadline will not be accepted. Furthermore, plagiarism is a serious offense and a form of academic dishonesty. Academic knowledge is based on the traceability of data and sources. Therefore, the use of artificial intelligence(AI) is not considered appropriate in the theoretical construction phases, formulation of research questions, definition of objectives, development of the analytical model, diagnosis, data collection and interpretation, or in the writing of results and conclusions. However, AI may be used to break the ice when writing, for formal text revision, summarizing, code correction, data analysis, or reviewing bibliographic references.

In any case, students must clearly indicate which parts of the work were generated using AI, specify the tools used, and include a critical reflection on how these tools influenced the process and the final result. Lack of transparency in this regard will be considered academic dishonesty. Plagiarism or improper use of AI will result in a grade of 0 for the affected assignment, and if repeated, may result in a 0 for the entire course.

You invest time and money to attend class: therefore, the use of mobile phones, laptops with Wi-Fi, tablets, or other electronic devices is not permitted in the classroom.

To be eligible for the resit exam, students must have been previously assessed in at least two-thirds of the total course grade. Field notes and partial submissions of the group project are not recoverable.

This course is excluded from the possibility of single assessment (AU).


Bibliography

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Emerson, Robert; Fretz, Rachel & Shaw, Linda. (2011). Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. The University of Chicago Press. (Capítols 1 & 2). (llibre disponible a la biblioteca)

Goffman, Erving. (1974/1989). On fieldwork, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 18: 123-132. (revista electrònica disponible a la biblioteca)

Lareau, Annette. (1996). Capítol Common Problems in Fieldwork: A Personal Essay. A Lareau, A. & Shultz, J. Journeys through Ethnography. Realistic accounts of fieldwork. Boulder: Westview Press. (llibre disponible a la biblioteca)

Mauss, Marcel. (1936/1971). El concepto de latécnica corporal en Sociología y antropología. Madrid: Tecnos. (disponible a la biblioteca)

Muntanyola Saura, D. (2014). Metodología(s). Perspectivas, prácticas y desafíos, Encrucijadas, 8, 18-56.

O’Reilly, Karen (2012). Ethnographic Analysis in Ethnographic Methods. London: Routledge.(llibre electronic disponible a la biblioteca)

 

BIBLIOGRAFIA COMPLEMENTÀRIA

Alvarez-Uria, F. & Varela, J. (2009) Sociología de las instituciones. Madrid: Morata.

Abu-Lughod, Lila. (1986). Veiled sentiments: Honor and poetry in a Bedouin society. University of California Press.

Álvarez-Uría, F., & Varela, J. (2004). Sociología, capitalismo y democracia. Madrid: Morata.

Becker, Howard S. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance. Free Press.

Becker, Howard S. (1982). Art worlds. University of California Press.

Becker, Howard S. (2014). What about Mozart? What about murder? Reasoning from cases. University of Chicago Press.

Behky, Beth A. (2006). Talking about machines, thick description, and knowledge work. Organization Studies, 27, 1757-1768.

Behar, Ruth. (1996). The vulnerable observer: Anthropology that breaks your heart. Beacon Press.

Berthomé, François, Bonhomme, Julien, & Delaplace, Grégory. (2012). Preface: Cultivating uncertainty. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2(2), 129-137.

Blom Hansen, Thomas, & Stepputat, Finn (Eds.). (2001). States of imagination: Ethnographic explorations of the postcolonial state. Duke University Press.

Bolíbar, M. (2015). Macro, meso, micro: Broadening the ‘social’ of social network analysis with a mixed methods approach. Quality & Quantity. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-015-0259-0

Burawoy, Michael. (1998). The extended case method. Sociological Theory, 16(1), 4-33.

Burawoy, Michael. (2019). The extended case method: Four countries, four decades, four great transformations, and one theoretical tradition. University of California Press.

Burguess, R. (Ed.). (2006). Field research: A sourcebook and field manual. Routledge.

Charmaz, Kathy. (2025). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. Sage.6th Ed.

Cicourel, Aaron V. (2006). The interaction of discourse, cognition and culture. Discourse Studies, 8(1), 25-29.

Dunier, Mitchell. (2006). Ethnography, the ecological fallacy, and the 1995 Chicago heat wave. American Sociological Review, 71, 679-688.

Fernández, Miquel. (2014). Matar al xino: Entre el control penal i l’autocontrol. Virus Editorial.

Flyvbjerg, Bent. (2011). Case study. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (pp. 301-316). Sage.

Franzosi, Roberto. (2004). From words to numbers: Narrative, data, and social science. Cambridge University Press.

Garfinkel, Harold. (2006). Seeing sociologically: The routine grounds of social action. Paradigm Publishers.

Geertz, Clifford. (1973). Theinterpretation of cultures: Selected essays. Basic Books.

Glaser, Barney G., Strauss, Anselm L., & Strutzel, Elizabeth. (1968). The discovery of grounded theory; strategies for qualitative research. Nursing Research, 17(4), 364.

Goffman, Alice. (2014). On the run: Fugitive life in an American city. University of Chicago Press.

Goffman, Erving. (1983). Presidential address: The interaction order. American Sociological Review, 48(1), 1-17.

González-Abrisketa, Olatz. (2013). Cuerpos desplazados: Género, deporte, y protagonismo cultural en la plaza vasca. AIBR. Revista de Antropología Iberoamericana, 8(1), 83-110.

Haney, Lynn. (1996). Homeboys, babies, men in suits: The state and the reproduction of male domination. American Sociological Review, 61(6), 759-778.

Hanneman, Robert A., & Riddle, Mark. (2005). Introduction to social network methods. University of California, Riverside. http://faculty.ucr.edu/~hanneman/

Harrington, Brooke. (2003). The social psychology of access in ethnographic research. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 32(5), 592-625.

Heath, Shirley Brice. (1993). The madness(es) of reading and writing ethnography. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 24(3), 256-268.

Hesse-Biber, Sharlene Nagy. (2010). Qualitative approaches to mixed methods practice. Qualitative Inquiry, 16(6), 455-468.

Hine, Christine. (2008). Overview: Virtual ethnography: Modes, varieties, affordances. In N. G. Fielding, R. M. Lee, & G. Blank (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of online research methods (pp. 257-270). Sage.

Hochschild, Arlie Russell. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. University of California Press.

Hochschild, Arlie Russell. (1989). The second shift: Working families and the revolution at home. Viking.

Klinenberg, Eric. (2006). Blaming the victim: Hearsay, labeling, and the hazards of quick-hit disaster ethnography. American Sociological Review, 71(4), 689-698.

Lozares, Carlos. (2003). Valores, campos y capitales sociales. REDES: Revista Hispana para el Análisis de Redes Sociales, 4(2).

Muntanyola Saura, Dafne. (2014). Metodología(s): Perspectivas, prácticas y desafíos. Encrucijadas: Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 8, 18-56.

Rettie, Ruth. (2009). Mobile phone communication: Extending Goffman to mediated interaction. Sociology, 43(3), 421-438.

Salzinger, Leslie. (1997). From high heels to swathed bodies: Gendered meanings under production in Mexico’s export-processing industry. Feminist Studies, 23(3), 549-574.

Smith, Dorothy E. (1987). The everyday world as problematic: A feminist sociology. Northeastern University Press.

Stack, Carol B. (1974). All our kin: Strategies for survival in a Black community. Harper & Row.

Stacey, Judith. (1988). Can there be feminist ethnography? Women's Studies International Forum, 11(1), 21-27.

Tavory, Iddo, & Timmermans, Stefan. (2009). Two cases of ethnography: Grounded theory and the extended case method. Ethnography, 10(3), 243-263.

Tedlock, Barbara. (2004). Narrative ethnography as social science discourse. Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 27, 23-42.

Van Dijk, Teun A. (2009). Critical discourse studies: A sociocognitive approach. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (pp. 62-86). Sage.

Velasco, Honorio, & Díaz de Rada, Ángel. (2006). La lógica de la investigación etnográfica: Un modelo de trabajo para etnógrafos de la escuela. Trotta.

Wacquant, Loïc. (2002). Scrutinizing the street: Poverty, morality, and the pitfalls of urban ethnography. American Journal of Sociology, 107(6), 1468-1532.

Wacquant, Loïc. (2003). Ethnografeast: A progress report on the practice and promise of ethnography. Ethnography, 4(1), 5-14.

Wacquant, Loïc. (2004). Body & soul: Notebooks of an apprentice boxer. Oxford University Press.

 

Sobre sociologia visual:

Banks, Marcus (2005). Visual Methods in Social Research. London: Sage.

Becker, Howard. S. (2005). Visual sociology, documentary photography, and photojournalism: It's (almost) all a matter of context. In Image-based research (pp. 84-96). Routledge.

Boudieu, Pierre & Bourdieu, Marie-Claire. (1965/2004). The peasant and photograpjy. Ethnography, 5(4): 601-616.

Bourdieu, P. (1965/2003) Un arte medio. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili.

Delgado, Melvin. (2015) Urban YouthandPhotovoice: Visual Ethnography in Action. Oxford University Press.

Evans, Jessica & Hall, Stuart. (Eds). (2005). Visual Culture: the reader. London: Sage.

Harper,Douglas. (2002). Talking About Pictures: a Case for Photo Elicitation. Visual studies  17.1 (2002): 13–26.

Harper, Douglas. (2012). Visual Sociology. Chicago University Press.

Lozowy, Andriko, Rob Shields, and Sara Dorow (2013). “Where Is Fort McMurray? The Camera as a Tool for Assembling ‘Community.’” Canadian journal of sociology 38.2: 191–210.

Maresca, Sylvain y Meyer, Michaël (2015). Compendio de fotografía para uso de sociólogos. Edicions Bellaterra.

Mitchell, Claudia. (2011) Doing Visual Research. London: Sage.

Muntanyola-Saura, Dafne. (2017). El video y la danza:  cómo laetnografía audiovisual modifica la mirada sociológica. Dossier “Las razones y las Emociones de las Imágenes” / Dossiê “As razões e as emoções das imagens”. RBSE Revista Brasileira de Sociologia da Emoção, 16-47: 57-74.

Muntanyola-Saura, D. 2012. “Expert Knowledge and  Video-aided Ethnography a Methodological Account.”  Révue de Synthèse 133 (1): 75–100.

Mok, T.M., Cornish, F. & Tarr, J. (2015). Too Much Information: Visual Research Ethics in the Age of Wearable Cameras. Integr. psych. behav. 49, 309–322 https://doi-org.are.uab.cat/10.1007/s12124-014-9289-8

Mylne, E.J., Mitchell, Claudia & Naydene deLange. Handbook of Participatory Video. Toronto: Altamira Press

Pink, Sarah. (2013). Doing Visual Ethnography. SAGE: London.

Rosenblum, Barbara. (1978). Photographers at Work. A Sociology of Photographic Analysis. New York: Holmes & Meier.

Sontag, Susan. (2019) Sobre la fotografia. Barcelona: Arcadia Edicions. (1977) On Photography. New York: Pinguin Books.

 


Software

Atlas.ti i ELAN


Groups and Languages

Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2025. You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject.

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(PAUL) Classroom practices 1 Catalan second semester morning-mixed
(PAUL) Classroom practices 51 Catalan second semester afternoon
(SEM) Seminars 1 Catalan second semester morning-mixed
(SEM) Seminars 10 Catalan second semester morning-mixed
(SEM) Seminars 51 Catalan second semester afternoon
(SEM) Seminars 510 Catalan second semester morning-mixed
(TE) Theory 1 Catalan second semester morning-mixed
(TE) Theory 51 Catalan second semester afternoon